Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has promised to clear thousands of illegal Tunisian migrants from Lampedusa by the weekend after an outcry over a humanitarian crisis on the tiny southern island.
Mr Berlusconi, who visited Lampedusa on Wednesday, said the work of moving around 6,000 migrants living in makeshift tent encampments to other centres in Italy had already begun on six ships with a combined capacity for 10,000 passengers.
The quiet tourist and fishing port, about 225km from Tunisia's coast, has been transformed into a rubbish-strewn encampment where hundreds of migrants from Tunisia disembark from overloaded fishing boats virtually every day.
'From this moment on, within 48-60 hours, Lampedusa will be inhabited solely by Lampedusans,' Mr Berlusconi told a meeting of the island's residents, who have seen 19,000 Tunisians arrive since popular unrest toppled their president in January.
As migrants have been moved on from Lampedusa, problems have sprung up at camps elsewhere in Italy and the government has struggled to come up with a longer-term response.
Mr Berlusconi's coalition allies in the Northern League have demanded that migrants be sent back to Tunisia immediately but the premier himself took a somewhat more cautious line.
'We will be able to take some of them back where they left from. It won't be easy but it would be a strong signal that it's not worth taking the risk and then being sent back home,' he said.
Mr Berlusconi, entangled in a series of corruption trials and facing charges next week of paying for sex with a minor, was prompted to act after tension rose sharply on the island and residents mounted angry protests.
